1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to surgical fasteners. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to surgical fasteners for use with surgical fastening instruments for joining tissue segments of varying thicknesses.
2. Background Of Related Art
Surgical fasteners and appliers are well known in the surgical arts and have become critical to many life saving surgical procedures. The use of surgical fastener appliers for applying fasteners to join tissue or tissue segments in a fast and efficient manner has obviated the time consuming step of manual suturing of tissue or tissue segments in a variety of surgical procedures, e.g., anastomoses procedures. The reduced time required to perform these surgical procedures using surgical fastener appliers has resulted in reduced trauma and risk to patients.
Typically, a surgical fastener includes a backspan and a pair of spaced legs. The legs are driven through tissue and into an anvil to deform the fastener into a desired configuration, e.g., a B-staple, to join segments of tissue, seal an incision or wound, and effect hemostasis of tissue or tissue segments. One concern associated with current surgical fasteners surrounds that the manner in which the fastener legs deform. It is desirable to provide a surgical fastener that deforms in a controlled manner to dispose the fastener legs in such a way that the surgical fastener has a minimal profile. Such a surgical fastener will secure sections of tissue together while having a minimal interference with the natural shifting of surrounding tissue.